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Boardman writes: "If all governments lie, what are the chances of anyone figuring out the truth or even anything close to the truth about twelve governments? One might be just as well off using a dartboard or a Ouija board to sort through the levels of deceit in play."

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. (photo: AP)
Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. (photo: AP)


America's Empire Has No Clothes

By William Boardman, Reader Supported News

05 September 13

 

"All governments lie ..." – I.F.Stone, American writer, c. 1967

ssume for a moment that I.F. Stone knew what he was talking about.

Then consider the reality that there are at least 12 governments directly engaged in support of one of the sides in the Syrian civil war.

These governments include the United States, Russia, Israel, Lebanon, Turkey, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Jordan, and Iran, as well as the Syrian government of Bashar al-Assad and the Syrian rebels (who should probably count as two or more "governments").

If all governments lie, what are the chances of anyone figuring out the truth or even anything close to the truth about twelve governments? One might be just as well off using a dartboard or a Ouija board to sort through the levels of deceit in play.

But Stone didn't just say "all governments lie," true as that may be. The full quote goes like this:

All governments lie, but disaster lies in wait for countries whose officials smoke the same hashish they give out.
In a Time of Torment: 1961-1967 (1967), p. 317

As we watch our public figures wrestle publicly with their "agonizing" decisions about American actions for or against Syria, it's increasingly hard to know who, if anyone, actually believes the words they speak.

On August 20, 2012, President Obama told a news conference:

We have been very clear to the Assad regime, but also to other players on the ground, that a red line for us is we start seeing a whole bunch of chemical weapons moving around or being utilized. That would change my calculus. That would change my equation.... We're monitoring that situation very carefully. We have put together a range of contingency plans. [emphasis added]

On September 4, 2013, the president told a news conference:

First of all, I didn't set a red line. The world set a red line. That wasn't a thing I just kinda made up. I didn't pluck it out of thin air. There's a reason for it. That's point number one. Point number two: my credibility is not on the line. The international community's credibility is on the line, and America and Congress's credibility's on the line, because we give lip service to the notion that these international norms are important.

The president could have said most of that in the first place in 2012. He could have framed the issue in terms of international treaties and the "international community" (or at least the United Nations) then. So why didn't he, since it was all just as true a year ago as it is now?

The question is not whether Obama knows he's lying, but why is he lying?

Well, it was also just as false in 2012. When the president says "we give lip service to the notion that these international norms are important," he glosses over the reality that no government's response to the use of chemical weapons in recent decades has involved much moral outrage. (In 2001, the U.S. withdrew from the first round of the Biological and Toxic Weapons Convention, effectively scuttling the international community's effort to control biological weapons.)

When Iraq used chemical weapons against Iran during their eight-year war (1980-1988), the "international community" was largely silent. The U.N. Security Council issued a statement that "chemical weapons had been used," but didn't say who used them and didn't suggest doing anything about it. The United States was the lone vote against issuing this statement. The U.S. under the Reagan administration rather approved the gassing of Iranians and supplied satellite intelligence to help their proxy government under Saddam Hussein attack the heaviest concentrations of Iranian troops.

In 1991, the CIA estimated that Iraq gas attacks killed 50,000 Iranian soldiers and left another 100,000 with long-term health effects. The CIA did not estimate civilian casualties. There was no outcry from the United States or the "international community." Iraq had international help in developing its chemical weapons from governments and/or companies in the U.S., West Germany, the Netherlands, the U.K., France, Australia, Italy, and East Germany,

A similar world silence lasted throughout the ten-year campaign Saddam's government waged against the Kurds in Iraq, including chemical weapons attacks during 1987-1989. The toll was hundreds of thousands of Kurds. The U.S. and the "international community" raised no outcry against the chemical weapons, or the genocide they implemented. American special envoy Donald Rumsfeld paid a friendly state visit to Saddam Hussein at the same time the U.S. knew Iraq was gassing Iranians.

The question of chemical weapons use only becomes more complicated when one starts to consider who uses white phosphorous and depleted Uranium, since several governments have recently used them, including the U.S. in the Balkans and Iraq. These are apparent crimes that might be prosecuted before the International Criminal Court, especially if the "international community" wanted real credibility.

Is the official moral argument the first clue to the official immoral purpose?

In other words, President Obama is right to call these chemical weapons moral standards mere "notions," but he distorted reality to call them "norms." As for "lip service," that denigrating phrase indicates his attitude, that the high-minded platitudes of moral diplomacy are meaningless – until it's useful to give them meaning for some tactical purpose. The attack on Syria that the president has proposed is unprecedented – no nation has attacked another because it used chemical weapons.

On September 3, 2013, House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi of California met with the president and then said this to a news conference:

President Obama did not draw the red line, humanity drew it decades ago – 170 some countries supporting the convention on not using chemicals, chemical warfare. So, it is really something that from a humanitarian standpoint cannot be ignored or else we cannot say 'never again.' Secondly, from a national security standpoint, it will send a very clear message to those who have weapons of mass destruction of any variety, that they should forget about using them.

Pelosi is 73. She has been in Congress since 1987. She has not led any crusade against chemical weapons used by Iraq, the U.S., or anyone else. On September 4, she refused to comment on past U.S. support for Iraq's use of chemical weapons. But NOW chemical weapons are important to her? Not credible.

On September 3, 2013, Secretary of State John Kerry told the Senate Foreign Relations committee:

Now, some have tried to suggest that the debate we're having today is about President Obama's red line. I could not more forcefully state that is just plain and simply wrong. This debate is about the world's red line. It's about humanity's red line. And it's a red line that anyone with a conscience ought to draw. This debate is also about Congress' own red line....

Kerry is 70. He served in the Senate for almost 30 years (1985-2013). He did not object loudly to Iraq's use of chemical weapons at the time, nor did he make a big issue of it after the fact. Despite his active pursuit of a variety of well-publicized issues, Kerry has never led any crusade against chemical weapons used by anyone. But NOW chemical weapons are important to him? Not credible.

If you're not telling the truth, does it matter whether you're lying?

Almost everyone in Congress or at a high level in the administration is old enough to know the history of American actions regarding chemical weapons. If they don't know, they should know. And they have a responsibility to know, and to tell the truth. That is the red line that matters most, and they have crossed it, and now the credibility of the American body politic is being challenged – again.

On September 4, 2013, Democratic congressman Alan Grayson of Florida asked Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel to release transcripts of Syrian generals talking about the August 21 gas attack, reported by the government to confirm Syrian culpability and reported by others to express surprise. Grayson suggested releasing the transcripts to let the public judge for itself and not be misled.

Hagel responded: "I'm not aware of the administration misleading the American public on this issue, or any other issue."

On September 5, 2013, President Obama spoke at a news conference in Sweden, where he made an apparent Freudian slip that went uncorrected:

"I can say without confidence, chemical weapons were used."

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